“Oz,” I say as I quickly finish pouring my latest batchinto molds.
He looks up from the pot he’s stirring.
“Oz, you need to hide. Right now.”
He straightens to his full height, which puts his head about six inches from the ceiling.
“What is it?”
“Mrs. Pritchett. She’s coming up the drive. She has a casserole.”
“How do you know she has a casserole?”
“Because she always has a casserole. Go. Living room, bedroom, I don’t care, just get away from the windows.”
He flows toward the hallway with a speed and silence that should be impossible for something his size.
I hear the soft, liquid sound of him rearranging himself somewhere deeper in the house, and then I’m wiping coconut oil off my hands with a dish towel, pulling my hair back into something that could pass for intentional, and heading for the front door.
I make it to the porch just as the golf cart crests the slight rise in my driveway.
Mrs. Pritchett is behind the wheel in a sun hat so wide it creates its own microclimate.
She’s wearing a floral blouse and khaki capris and an expression of determined neighborliness.
There is, predictably, a casserole dish balanced on the passenger seat, covered in foil.
“Maisie!” She waves with one hand while steering with the other, and the golf cart wobbles slightly on the gravel. “I was in the neighborhood.”
Of course she was.
She lives a quarter mile away.
She’s always in the neighborhood.
Sheisthe neighborhood.
“Morning, Mrs. Pritchett.” I position myself at the top of the porch steps, which is the sweet spot between welcoming and barricade. “What brings you by?”
“Green chile chicken.” She hefts the casserole dish with both hands as she climbs out of the cart. “I made a double batch and Harold can’t eat it anymore because ofhis reflux, and I thought, well, Maisie’s over there working herself to the bone on that big order, she’s probably living on crackers and coffee.”
She’s mostly right.
“That’s so kind.” I come down two steps, which lets me intercept the casserole at arm’s length. “You really didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense. You need to eat more. Your grandmother would kill me if she saw the state you’re in. I need to fatten you up well before she gets back.”
Mrs. Pritchett hands over the dish and immediately cranes her neck to look past me at the front door, which I left open.
“Are you managing okay in there?”
“Getting through it. Ahead of schedule, actually.”
“All by yourself?”
The question is warm and loaded, delivered with the precise casualness of a seasoned interrogator.
I cough to try to cover up my initial hesitation. “Yeah. I mean, who else would behelping me?”
